Computing networks can include multiple devices including network devices such as routers, switches, and hubs, computing devices such as servers, desktop PCs, laptops, workstations, and peripheral devices, e.g., printers, facsimile devices, and scanners, networked together across a local area network (LAN), a wireless local area network (WLAN), and/or wide area network (WAN).
One application for WLANs is for streaming data, such as streaming movies, music, or other media. In some instances, multiple computing devices, e.g., clients, may be associated with a single network device, e.g., access point (AP). The client computing devices may include a network device such as a wireless network card to facilitate communication with the AP. The data throughput of the AP for a data stream from the AP to the clients may be limited by the abilities of any one of the multiple clients. For example, if five clients are associated with the AP and four of the clients are capable of receiving data at a “fast” maximum speed but one of the clients is capable of receiving data at a “slow” maximum speed, then the AP may be configured to multicast and/or broadcast for the five clients at the “slow” speed to ensure that all five clients receive the data stream. Conversely, if the AP is configured to multicast and/or broadcast at the “fast” speed, the one client may not receive the transmission. Transmission characteristics of the AP may generally be parameters configurable by a network administrator.
Some previous approaches to WLAN multicast and/or broadcast data streams include provisioning of an AP by a network administrator to select the “slowest” maximum speed for any client expected to receive the data stream as described above. Other approaches have included the use of multicast and/or broadcast to unicast conversion for all clients such that the speed of each converted unicast data stream can be tailored to each client's abilities. Such unicast approaches can exhaust the resources of the AP without serving all clients that wish to receive the data stream. Accordingly, such previous unicast approaches may include the use of admission control by blocking data streams to new clients when a data transmission capacity of the AP is reached by current clients.